


Sagittarius

by aventria, iluxia



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: #ThePumpkinIsPeople, AU, Alternate Universe, Angry Will Noises, Bodily Mutilations, Dark Curses, Hannibal Is A Sorcerer, Happy cannibal noises, M/M, Religious overtones, Someone Help Will Graham, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:13:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8426938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aventria/pseuds/aventria, https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluxia/pseuds/iluxia
Summary: "Miss Abigail is dead," Lecter clarifies, standing before him with hands at either side. Will nods sharply. "She died five days ago.""How?" "They hanged her," Will snarls, "for witchcraft."  [ A witchcraft!AU set in 1691, in which Abigail, Will's younger sister, is hanged for witchcraft, leaving Will behind to grapple with the truth and unravel the allegations surrounding her death. Sorcerer!Hannibal, witch!Bedelia. A submission for Hannibal Cre-Ate-Ive's #ThePumpkinIsPeople Halloween event. ]





	

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING** : Ahead are **religious overtones** and **some seriously graphic descriptions of inappropriate handling of dead bodies**... but you are the Hannibal fandom. I have confidence in your deviance.
> 
> Additionally, I had to remake my tumblr over so if you were following me, I lost you. Sorry! It's still [iluxia](http://iluxia.tumblr.com/) @ tumblr! I'm trying to be more diligent with blogging again so feel free to stalk at will. :)

  


> _August 14, 1691_
> 
> _He came to me and I knew not what to do. What I should have done. There is nothing else I could have done, is there? It does not work as well, but I will make a protection. It is all I can think to do. Brother must not know, he_ cannot _know._
> 
> _Let fate be the judge of my deeds, for God has abandoned us after all._

  


* * *

  


The dead weight on his horse is all that is left of Abigail. 

She died, they told him, two hours before his return. She did not suffer, they assured him. It was quick and merciful, they said. It was just.

Will had not been allowed to remove her body from the gallows. She hung there for a whole day and more, a pale and lifeless wraith, her long dark hair blowing in the wind, her fingertips turning the dark colours of blue and purple and black. Will had the most vivid memories of those tiny, skillful hands. He used to lead her by the hand when they were little, down the trodden path toward the church, every Sunday with their parents in the best clothes they had. He would pick flowers for her to weave into braids and crowns, something to keep her occupied so that she would not run underfoot. The violets always made her smile.

He trudges past a clearing in the wood where there should be a thicket of them. They came to this place often in the summer; he knows they are there. But he cannot see much this dark at night, when the trees in front of him are but grey shapes in the darkness. Above, the moon hangs over his head like a scythe, gleaming in wait for a sacrifice of blood.

If he looks over his shoulder, he might imagine the brief blink of torchlight in the distance, the townsfolk up in arms in search for him. It is only his imagination. He had waited until all of them were gathered and occupied with dinner with their families. He was there too, in town for a little while, long enough to be seen but only just. They know he is in mourning. They think he has gone home.

 _But I am home_ , he thinks, for his home is where his family is. Abigail was all that he had left. His little sister, soft-spoken but bright-eyed, so fiercely independent, so full of life. _What have they done to you, Abby? What have they done?_

Past the oak groves and around mossy bogs, across tangles of streams, Will walks on. His horse's reins are in his hands, and his two dogs trotting ahead of him to lead the way. Four more hours until Boston. There, he will find this man called Hannibal Lecter.

  


* * *

  


Will found the name written on the margins of her diary. Will found other things there, other things he did not know she knew. There were drawings and sketches, circles and five-point stars, blotches of dark ink that looked like skulls -- his sweet sister, corrupted and possessed, taken by the devil. 

So they all say.

Abigail was a quiet young lady, more affectionate of tame beasts and nature than she is of her fellows at the day school. Will knows that part of the fault is his. They never quite fit in after their parents passed away. They were always the odd children, singled out and separated, never fully welcome at any dinner table. And Will, whose best behaviour alarmed the most considerate of the townsfolk, only became more removed and erratic after witnessing their parents' violent deaths.

It would have stood to reason if they had accused him instead of his sister. Abigail was quiet, but she made an effort to belong. Will did not. He was not capable of it. He knew this as surely as he knew that the sun would rise in the east and set in the west. Abigail had hope of becoming accepted, finding herself a decent man to marry and beginning a life of her own.

But _witchcraft_ , of all things! She who would never harm a flower! Will could not fathom it. 

Even now, as he trudges along in the cold, he still cannot fathom it. Tears gather and well at the edges of his vision, but he brushes them away with a knuckle. Tears shan't serve him now. The last he shed was for his parents, and even then only long enough to honor their memory. Abigail's memory is best honored another way.

  


* * *

  


"All the way to Andover?" Abigail had asked on the last night they were with each other. She was cooking something, perhaps the rabbit Will had trapped and skinned earlier in the day.

"The Blooms' eldest daughter is marrying Mr. Chilton next month," Will grunts, packing for himself a satchel with basic provisions, an extra blanket, and a small knife. "They require hands for the lady's journey here, I reckon for the flock. Thirty heads of cattle, some ten heads of sheep."

Abigail's face brightened in surprise. "For her dowry? That's generous."

"Very generous," Will had agreed. "Mr. Chilton is beyond overjoyed, you can imagine. He is willing to pay for the help, and we need the money."

Abigail nodded, moving from the fire where a pot of stew was bubbling, almost ready. Will helped her place the bread on the table and cut a small portion of butter. She ladled stew into their worn wooden bowls and they sat together, heads bowing and fingers weaving together for prayer.

"Our Father," Will had murmured, "in heaven, hallowed be Thy name..."

Abigail had kept her head down, her eyes closed, her face at peace. But Will had said the whole prayer, and her not a word.

They supped in a warm, comfortable silence. Will left the following morning with the rest of the men Mr. Chilton had hired. Abigail had walked with him all the way to the edge of the wood, where the muddy path was dug into by carriage wheels and horse hooves. Ahead of them, a short distance away, the forest was dense and dying, a sign of impending winter. When Will had looked back, Abigail was still there, standing on the path, a basket of herbs in one arm and the other raised in farewell.

Had Will only known what would happen next, he would never have left.

  


* * *

  


"His body was found in a glen in the forest, partway buried, but some animal had exhumed a leg," Mr. Crawford had explained. Will could only barely listen, the haunting image of Abigail's lifeless body swaying still before his eyes. "The body was already rotting, but the deep knife wound in his gut told the tale well enough. Nicholas did not die of natural causes. What remained to be seen was who committed such a sin."

Will had stared at Mr. Crawford's left ear, that spot where it was notched from an arrow that grazed him long ago, a story the retired soldier liked to boast about. Will could not meet his eyes. He could not meet any of their eyes. He did not want to see their thoughts. "H-How could you think it was Abigail?"

"We did not at first," Mr. Crawford continued. Behind him, everyone remained mute but observant of the confrontation. "We all wondered. We did not want to think the worst of anyone. But we found this laid on top of Nicholas' chest, Will."

There, in Mr. Crawford's hand, was a small circular hoop made of tiny bent twigs and dried straw and twine. The circle, uncannily smooth and well-made, was bisected into triangular sections by more twine. It looked strange to Will.

"What is it?" he asked.

"A pentacle," Mr. Crawford plainly declared. An audible hiss rippled through the small crowd. "An icon of the devil. Witchcraft, Will. That is what this is."

"You have not answered my question, sir. How could you think it was Abigail who committed such sin? How could you not give her a fair trial? How could you not have the decency to wait for my return? That was my _sister_ , Mr. Crawford. That was my _little sister._ "

Mr. Crawford cleared his throat. "Fredricka, you know her, one of Abigail's friends, she came to my wife after Nicholas' body was found. She had seen Abigail make one of these before. Fredricka had not known, at the time, about the nature of this object. Abigail had told her it was for protection. Abigail had lied."

"Surely you did not hang my sister based on one girl's accusation. She deserved a fair trial."

"And a trial we gave her," Mr. Crawford said. "We found her at the edge of the woods by your house, collecting herbs and berries. She came peaceably. We questioned her and she denied knowledge of anything, but during the questioning, she became distraught and often touched her neck. My wife asked if she was uncomfortable, if she needed water. When Isabella tried to approach her, Abigail lashed out, at which point we had to restrain her. Isabella herself reached into Abigail's dress and pulled out a pendant of the very same kind we found atop Nicholas' dead body. It was then that she confessed."

Mr. Crawford's declaration had struck Will like a physical blow. He staggered, blinking and gasping for breath, scarcely able to believe his own ears. Did they truly believe this? Witchcraft? Abigail? Abigail _con-confessed?_

Isabella, Mr. Crawford's wife, came forward and laid a hand on Will's arm. "She confessed, Mr. Graham. She confessed that she killed Nicholas with a hunting knife in the woods on the last day he was seen this past summer. They were having a conversation, Abigail said, but when we asked her how it turned violent, Abigail wouldn't tell us. She only said, 'Let fate be the judge of my deeds.' Do you know what she meant, Mr. Graham?"

Will shook his head, eyes screwed shut. Abigail would not have done such a thing. They must have pressured her, threatened her, frightened her. Of course she was distraught; _anyone_ would be distraught! And that boy, Nicholas -- Will never did like how that boy looked at her -- that boy must have done something -- !

But when he had opened his eyes and looked around the small crowd of people surrounding him, their faces told him that they would never believe his words. They did not need speak. Will could see their judgement plain as day. If he tried to contest, they would begin to doubt him too. And before long, it would be him at the gallows, or worse yet, burning at the stake. It was not unheard of. The Catholics were doing it in Germany and France and Spain. It was only a matter of time before it reached the colonies.

Will went home that day. Snow began to fall, fat flakes dancing as they descended from the heavens. He passed by the makeshift gallows, where Abigail hung limp, guarded by a handful of men. One of them was Jimmy, who gave Will an apologetic look. He was not allowed to take her body home. They said they would do it, they would bury her in a manner befitting a witch. Some said he should be grateful she did not burn.

His two dogs came to greet him as he approached their house. His house. Just him now, him and Winston and Roper, in this house and this farm with his small flock of sheep and the herb garden Abigail was tending. Somehow he had made it indoors before he collapsed to his knees and cried.

  


* * *

  


There was only one hunting knife in the household, such a luxury far too difficult for them to afford, an inheritance from their late father who knew how to hunt. It was from Beau Graham that Will learned how to trap and slaughter and skin and butcher, a necessity he has always wished away. He preferred fishing and did so whenever he could, bringing home trout and milkfish and whatever he could catch from the freshwater. It was harder for him to feel the fear in the fishes' eyes.

It must have been that knife that Abigail had used, if it were indeed true that she had killed that boy, and yet such a thing would have been impossible, for Will had taken the knife to Andover himself. It was a necessary object he always carried whenever he traveled the roads, his only defense against brigands and any less tractable Indians who happened to cross his path. He had never had to kill with it before. The only human blood it has ever tasted was the blood of the man his father had killed a long time ago to protect his mother. It had been an Indian too, dark-skinned and snarling, attempting to loot them on their way from Boston to Salem. Abigail was still in the womb then, Will but a toddler swaddled and strapped on his father's back. 

After the heavy tide of grief had ebbed enough to leave him cold and shivering in its wake, he had hoisted himself to his feet and bolted the doors behind him, plunging the house into darkness. He felt his way along the wall, past the large firepit in the middle which served warmth in the winter and a place to cook, for the luxury of a fireplace was much too costly to build. The dinner and kitchen tables were across the firepit, alongside tall shelves on the wall stacked with jars of honey and drying herbs and curing meat stockpiled for the coming winter. Too much food now for Will alone. He turned away from it and towards their cots. They slept feet to feet, atop narrow wool-stuffed beds Will built with his own hands. Underneath were drawers where they kept blankets, clothes, and sundry; they each had a small writing desk filled with lures and some books for Will, ribbons and thread and needles and a diary for Abigail. 

Surely she would have written about this in the diary.

With trembling hands, Will lit the candle on her desk and unlatched the little black book. It was an inheritance from their late mother, just as Will inherited his father's hunting knife. The first few pages were filled with his mother's looping script, but shortly afterward Abigail's penciled scrawl took over. Crouching to sit on the bed she once slept in, Will began to read.

  


* * *

  


It takes him until the morning to make it to Boston, and by then he is beyond exhausted. The horse and the dogs are fine, however, and lead him confidently down the trodden path. The smell of cooking meat and the trails of a nearby human settlement alert him that he is close. He knows not where to begin, but the townsfolk will be able to tell him where to find this Mr. Lecter.

When he finds a nearby stream, he stops to water the horse and freshen his countenance. The cold water wakes him as he splashes it over his cheeks. He hopes it also brings him some color so that they do not suspect his true state.

Once his horse is finished drinking, he adjusts the saddle and the large bundle of wool strapped above it. There was no other way to disguise Abigail's body. He is fortunate that winter is almost upon them, that the cold is delaying the rot from taking her body. He cannot smell her at all through the layers of wool and sheepskin and fleece. 

In town, he makes for the market and finds a merchant who looks halfway friendly. Boston is a much larger settlement than Salem; nonetheless, he attracts wary attention as a stranger. Will asks about Mr. Lecter, hoping against hope that they know where to find him, and sags in relief when the merchant nods.

"The physician, yes! He lives outside of town at the edge of the forest, up that hill and around the grove of oaks." Will follows the merchant's finger, pointing past the market and through some houses, where beyond towers a hill overlooking the sea. Halfway up the hill, he spies a dirt path cutting through the tall grass, but further beyond is obscured by the thick trees. "Ye can see smoke some days and it tells which way to go. Ah, ye shan't get lost, the path will take ye there. If it is that sort of day, ye'll even have company going up the hill. Plenty of the townsfolk and beyond go to him for all sorts o' things. He grows his own apothecary. Good man, Mr. Lecter. Are ye ill, sir? Needing a physician?"

"My sister," Will chokes out, perhaps believably enough that the merchant sympathetically nods and waves him thither. "Thank you, sir."

"I'd ask that ye buy one of my wares instead of thanking me, but if ye've got an ill sister, ye've got better uses of yer coin," the merchant chortles. "Where are ye from?"

"Andover," Will says, for he has no doubt that news has made it here since Abigail's hanging. They will watch him closer if they knew he hailed from Salem. They will drive him away.

Will goes then, weaving his way through the market stalls and the muddy streets snaking in between houses that look better kept than the ones they have in Salem. This was a proper town, with more trade and seafare than Salem sees in their busiest summers. He hopes, for their sakes, that they not be overtaken by the same paranoid hysteria that seems to have gripped Salem around the neck.

Up the hill he goes, following the path to and fro as it weaves around large stones and fallen logs and tricky patches of soft soil prone to erosion under rain. The oak grove approaches in front of him, dark and dense; the path coils left and disappears behind it. Urging his horse along, Will walks and walks, until around the path he winds and suddenly the trees break for a magnificent view of the bay, the edge of the town, and the wide, windswept sea. Will has to pause to catch his breath, though he does not know if he lost it because of the sight or the height he just climbed.

He comes back to when the dogs begin barking at something. Behind him, further up the path, stands a quaint-looking house with a porch and what looks like a well-tended flower garden before it. There is no one in sight but through the windows he can see that candles are lit indoors and there is smoke issuing from the discreet chimney. Squaring his jaw, he marches forward.

Will knocks on the door and calls out. "Apologies, Mr. Lecter."

A short pause, a muffled voice from the inside. Will waits until the door opens. From the shadows emerge a tall man with hair the color of brown ash and bright amber eyes. Something about him is bewitching; Will knows it as the thrum of subterfuge and danger.

"Yes, may I help you?"

Will blinks at the low timbre of the man's voice. He has to struggle not to be overwhelmed. What sorcery is this? "My name is William Graham, from Salem. You know my sister, Abigail Graham."

A light of knowledge sparks in Lecter's eyes. "Briefly, but yes. Is she in need of my help?"

"Yes," Will almost growls. "If you are indeed what you are, then you must know a way to bring her back."

Lecter blinks, perplexed. "Back from where, Mr. Graham?"

"Where your little lessons brought her," Will snarls grimly. "From the dead."

  


* * *

  


Will had just weathered his seventh winter when their parents were killed. It was a warm spring day, perfect for gathering berries and mushrooms, for trapping in the forest, perhaps slinging some birds or catching some fish. He left with his parents, bright-eyed in excitement and pride that his father now considered him old enough to help. Abigail, still toddling and a tad under the weather, was left in town under the care of Mrs. Boyle, whom mother did not like for her simpering behavior but did have a daughter the same age and took great care of children besides.

They had spent most of the morning gathering the berries and setting the traps. Father managed to kill two birds with the slingshot. By early afternoon, they made it to the river where the young fish were teeming, dinner waiting to be caught. Beau Graham was teaching his son how to fix a pole when his wife's scream shattered the idyllic silence.

It was large and it was hungry. Will remembered in vivid detail the yellow snarl of teeth in the bear's mouth, its large paws thudding on soft earth, leaving imprints behind it. He remembered how his mother had turned but did not run fast enough, how she had been overtaken, sharp claws tearing into her back. His father shoved him towards a tree, yelled, "Climb, Will! Now! Go!" and went to his mother, armed with nothing but that hunting knife.

Will scampered up that tree, as swiftly and quietly as he could, sobbing and nearly in hysterics when he made it up to the highest branch that could hold his weight. When he turned to look below, his mother and father were prone on the ground, bloodied and unmoving, his father's knife knocked into the river. He could see where it was, lodged between two stones, glinting under the bright springtime sunlight. The bear had one paw on his mother's back, growling and snarling still with a bloody muzzle. Some short distance away was the carcass of a small doe, a carcass they had not seen, torn into and ripped apart by the bear's hunger. They had walked into its territory and threatened the ownership of its kill.

Will clung to the tree until sundown. He watched the bear tear his parents limb from limb, gorging itself after a whole winter of desolate hunger. He watched, tears drying on his face, until there was near to nothing one could recognize about his parents' bodies. When the bear finally went away, back up the river toward its shelter, Will slipped down from the tree and stepped on earth soaked with his parents' blood. The freshwater river now ran pink.

It took him until morning to find his way back to town. There they found him trudging down the path from the forest, with nothing but his blank tear-stained face and a gleaming hunting knife clutched tightly in one bloody hand.

  


* * *

  


Hannibal Lecter regards him with sharp eyes and then looks around behind him, cautious. "This is not a conversation to be had outside. Come in."

Will ducks his head and slashes his hand to order the dogs to stay. He has tied the horse off at the edge of the garden, far from the flowers but near a patch of tall grass. He only hazards one glance at the bundle of wool saddled on the horse before he follows Lecter inside.

The first room is sparse but quite large, with several chairs, a table, and a perfectly folded narrow bed against one wall. This must be where Lecter receives his patients. The windows look out at the front of the house and also through the sides, where more greens grow lush and well-tended. Ahead of him is a hallway which leads out to a back door; more gardens, no doubt. The hallway has two doors, one to the left which is closed, and another to the right which is canted slightly open. Will spies it as the dining area and kitchen.

"Miss Abigail is dead," Lecter clarifies, standing before him with hands at either side. 

Will nods sharply. "She died five days ago."

"How?" 

"They hanged her," Will snarls, "for _witchcraft._ "

The statement takes him aback. Will can see it, the splash of surprise across Lecter's face, though it is partway hidden and well-controlled. A practitioner of the demonic arts must of course have the skills to hide it if he were to survive so long. But few can hide from Will's sight. It is his gift, his mother told him, but he knows it is more a curse, for it does not allow him to wear a veil of ignorance the same way everyone else does, the same way one must in order to be able to _enjoy_ other people. At best, he can barely _tolerate_ them.

"What proof had they that she practiced witchcraft? That is a serious allegation."

Will pulls her diary out of his satchel and flips to the crowded, scribbled page. "She made one of _these_ with twine and wood and left it on a dead boy's body. Her _friend_ ," Will spits the word out with black rage, "tattled on her, told the townsfolk that she had made one of these before for protection. They took her to the worship hall and questioned her, during which they found her in possession of another one of these, and then she confessed. She _confessed_ and was then _hanged_ , and I was not _there to protect her_!"

 _Where were you?_ Will knows Lecter wants to ask. The question hangs unspoken and unadressed between them.

"She wrote your name," Will jabs a finger on a page, "here in her diary. You -- you must have taught her these things. Otherwise she could not have known. No one in that town -- she must have learned it from elsewhere, and Boston is the only other place she's been, when she comes here with Mrs. Bay, the midwife who trains her. She must have come to you. Otherwise, how would she know you?"

Lecter inhales and regards him, head tilting slightly to one side, face blank. The expression -- or lack thereof -- is disconcerting. Will likens the behavior to that of a hungry predator, like _that_ hungry bear, observing the prey before it.

"It is true that I have met your sister once before," Lecter intones, voice low as a hum. "However, I did not teach her any of this." Will opens his mouth; Lecter holds up a quelling hand. "Listen to me first, please, and do not make the same mistake of condemning an innocent the same way your townsfolk have with your sister."

Struck mute, Will blinks and closes his mouth. He has no choice but to listen then.

"Miss Abigail came to me once during her visit to Boston with said midwife. She was in search of some herbs, was directed to my house, and came alone. That day, earlier this year in April, she traded some wool and cloth for some of those herbs. Miss Abigail had latent potential which I will admit I noticed upon meeting her. She is of a different sort, however, and is best trained for a different art than mine. I told her as much myself when she asked to be taught."

Will startles at his words. "She _asked_ to be taught?"

"Indeed," Lecter nods. "She noticed immediately my nature, the same as you have when you walked in through those doors. She knew, somehow; perhaps the power is in your blood."

Will's breathing grows ragged, unsettled by the revelations falling from Lecter's lips. How much more does he not know of his little sister? For all these years they have lived quietly together, he has never...

"The propensity manifests far earlier and more clearly in womenfolk," Lecter tells him. "I believe it is their capacity to bear children that encourages the power to surface far sooner, to protect them and the life that quickens within them. In men, it takes years, sometimes decades after majority, before the power manifests. In some, it never does."

Lecter gives him a strange look then, a look both piercing and simultaneously opaque. Will feels as if his very fibers are being picked apart and scrutinized. The air in the room grows heavy and heady with a warm, sunlit glow of energy. Like honey, except thicker and sweeter.

"You feel it too, perhaps clearer than she ever did. Well," Lecter says. "Blood _is_ powerful."

Will swallows, an audible click in the ensuing silence. "If not you, then who? Who did she learn this from? Because she could not have come upon this knowledge by herself. Someone had to have taught her."

Lecter leans forward and takes the diary from his lifeless fingers, flipping carefully through the pages full of pentacles and diagrams and strange processions of words. "Hers is the beguiling craft, built on words, drawing power from incantations. A particular art well-suited to one like Miss Abigail, whose power is soft and subtle, best used for persuasion and the manipulation of emotions, even of minds. No, this is not my craft, however," Lecter gives him a heavy, considering look, "I do know whose it is."

All of Will then snaps into attention. "Who?" he demands, lips curling against the burn of his rage. In here, everything is amplified; he can feel the hot rise of blood underneath his skin. He could kill right now. He could.

Hannibal Lecter shuts the diary gently and hands it back to him. "There is one other like myself in this town. Seek her on the other side of the bay, in a small house near the market overlooking the sea. Her name is Bedelia. She is the one you seek."

  


* * *

  


Like a dog led on a leash, Will trudges across town, hurrying to make it before nightfall. He has left the horse and the dogs on the hill, where the physician has offered to tend to them until he returns. He left Abigail's corpse there too, still bundled up in wool but brought into the house and kept in the dark cellar under the physician's kitchen. There was nothing in the cellar but a large stone table and shelves full of glass jars with strange animal parts and herbs inside.

The house he seeks is by settlement standards a grand one, befitting of a family of status. Bedelia is apparently the eldest sister of three children, widowed early in her marriage and since devoted to life as Boston's midwife. She lives with her other sister at her elderly parents' house, never lacking for money or sustenance but always perennially unhappy.

Will knocks on their door and calls out a greeting, aware that people are staring at his back. No matter; he can endure them. He is here to find out the truth.

A young lady's small, pixie-like face peers from behind the door, asking after his intent. Will asks for Bedelia, says that his sister is in need. Before the young lady can even leave the door, a voice from within beckons Will inside.

"Come in, sir, and tell me what service you require from me," Bedelia calls. "Is it your wife? Is the birth imminent?"

"Not as such," Will states, hat held firmly in both hands. "I come for my sister, Abigail Graham."

Bedelia then draws the door open, emerging from the shadows much the same way that Hannibal Lecter did, only less sinister. She takes one look at him and hardens. "Come inside, then," she beckons, voice splintering like brittle ice across Will's ears.

They retreat to a neatly furnished sitting room which she must use for her patients like Lecter has at his house. She sends the young girl away and shuts the doors, keeping her back to Will a second longer than necessary. Will narrows his eyes. It feels much the same here as it did in Lecter's house, that heady, sweet weight of energy humid against his skin.

"Abigail did tell me she had an elder brother," Bedelia remarks, remaining standing just as Will is. She moves toward the window, beside which there is a desk piled with some books and loose paper. Her fingertips graze its surface. Will tracks her movements as a hound would.

"She's dead," Will declares. "They hanged her for witchcraft. Witchcraft _you_ taught her."

No surprise flickers across her face. She knows.

"What a student does with the craft is not the responsibility of her master. I cannot be held responsible for her rash actions."

"Rash actions?" Will snarls. "Do you mean the dangerous thoughts you've been filling her head with? Dare you deny your culpability when her blood is as much on your hands as it is on mine?"

"And how is her blood on either of our hands, Mr. Graham?" she retorts coldly. "Did I hang her? Did you? Neither of us were present for the proceedings -- I assume you weren't or you would have sooner died in her place than let her hang for such a thing -- and yet somehow you assume fault just as you cast it upon me. Tell me, Mr. Graham, did you not stop to think what must have driven her to extremes, _murdering a boy she grew up with_ and then _burying his body_? -- oh yes, that much of the news has made it here. Before long, Boston will be up in arms casting accusations left and right. We left the continent to take ourselves away from persecution, Mr. Graham, and it seems that your beloved sister, with her stupidity, has jeopardized the peace we have come here to enjoy."

Will almost physically staggers against the weight of her pointed words. They ring inside his head, shattering what little is left of his determination. He sags into a chair and puts his head in his hands.

It makes sense, what Bedelia is saying. Neither of them were there, for the killing or for the hanging. Will can only presume that Nicholas threatened Abigail somehow, strongly enough that it led to an altercation, and Abigail ended up killing him in defense of herself. Unable to do anything else, she must have been frantic to hide the body, and yet, consumed with grief over what she had done, she left that pentacle, that piece of atonement, that _protection_ over his chest. 

"Why did you even teach her those things? Why did you give her this knowledge, this -- this -- _devilry,_ I don't understand -- "

"She was strong," Bedelia sighs softly, encouraging Will to look back up at her. She is looking out the window, something like wistfulness passing over her face. "She was strong, your sister, and when a person holds latent strength like such, they must be taught. Otherwise, they risk misusing the power when it comes to fruition. Her skill was in persuasion, in words, in incantations; if left unchecked, she would have unconsciously channeled that power through her everyday speech, compelling people to do whatever she bid them, making them obey even the most inane requests, perhaps even driving them to incoherent lunacy. It is incredibly easy, Mr. Graham, to break the threads of a person's sanity, if one with power is not careful. All she would have needed is a person's name to own them; there is incredible power in a name, did you know?"

"No," Will barks a harsh laugh, "how should I know? I am still aghast at all of this! I no longer know what to believe! She was my sister, how could I not notice?"

"Oh, but you did," Bedelia smiles now, a smile much like the sharp edge of a knife. Will abruptly remembers the way his father's hunting knife had gleamed underneath the blood-stained river water. 

"What do you mean?"

"You noticed, Mr. Graham, with those eyes of yours. Yes, I can tell; you are strong too. You have ignored it all these years; you have learned to tame it. You saw the change in her but you simply chose not to understand it, because if you did, it would have forced you to admit certain things about yourself, certain uncomfortable truths that you do not want to confront." Bedelia moves away from the window and stands in front of Will, tall and unforgiving with her blue eyes like flints in the gloom. "Tell me, William: how exactly does a seven-year-old survive a hungry, threatened bear that has just brutalized two grown adults? How did that bear not notice you up there in that tree? You were there for so long, your scent must have carried in the air. Animals can smell fear, after all. How does a seven-year-old find his way alone through the forest, unharmed moreover? How do you manage a herd of forty-seven sheep alone without losing a single one of them, season after season? How do you always come away with bounty from the forest, fish and small game, when the rest of the town laments the lack of sustenance from it? Mysteries, William Graham, which can only be explained one way and one way only." Bedelia leans towards him and hisses, "You are _one of us_."

Will recoils from her and abandons the room, rushing out of the house without so much as a farewell. If the townsfolk see him, they merely snort and return to their lives. It is not so strange to see a man rushing out of the midwife's house, perhaps towards his wife who languishes in labor. 

Bereft of anywhere else to go, Will runs up the hill, where a light smoke is rising against the setting sun.

  


* * *

  


He did notice.

They were little things, innocuous and more unnoticeable with each passing day, as if Abigail was getting better with her sleight of hand. She stopped uttering the prayers; after a while, Will never heard her quietly praying at night before bed. He did not think much of it, dismissing it as her consuming exhaustion from the chores of the day. 

She also started to spend more time in the forest, "collecting herbs, brother," she would say, whenever he asked. Whatever it is she did within the woods, he did not know. There were cuts on her finger and scratches on her arms, a strange cast to her face as if her eyes were larger and her lips fuller, and the deepening warmth of her voice, which gave Will such comfort to hear that he did not even think to suspect any evil of it.

And of himself, Will also noticed. How could he not?

He has lived with this for far longer than she has, tried to manage it and suppress it, tried to act _normal_ as if he did not see every thought, every intention, every permutation of emotion residing inside a person with one plain look at their eyes. It was always their eyes. When he was younger, he discomfited people with how long he would stare into their eyes, caught by the web of wants and desires and frustrations and wanton imaginations in the minds of people. He did not understand what it was that he saw until later. When he finally realized it, he shunned the skill and ceased to look.

And the animals, they came to him. They were always tame under his hand, obedient and pliable, easy to manage, easier yet to slaughter. They came as if they were bidden and submitted themselves without protest, even though they had to know that he meant to kill them. It was as if Will himself was the lure, baiting them, drawing them in, no need to hunt when he can sit in one place and they will come.

Abigail must have misjudged the breadth of her own capacity. If she had said something to that boy, Nicholas, that boy who has always looked upon her with favor and great lust... if she had said something to drive him to an extreme...

Will only wishes Abigail had told him. Perhaps he would have been able to hide that body better. If anything, he would have butchered it and used the parts in every way possible, such that no one would be able to find a trace of Nicholas Boyle no matter how hard they searched that forest.

He would have done it, he would, if she had only told him.

  


* * *

  


Somehow, he finds himself sat at the physician's table, with a scrumptious dinner laid out before him. Roasted potatoes and vegetables, fine ale, a generous slab of meat fired to perfection. Will picks up his cutlery and begins to eat.

"My thanks for your hospitality," Will murmurs before he takes the first bite. It seems inappropriate to utter the Lord's prayer in a sorcerer's house.

"You are welcome, William. May I call you William?" 

"Just Will," he mumbles, "and only if I can call _you_ by name."

"Of course," Hannibal Lecter graciously grants. What a strange name, _Hannibal_.

"Bedelia said," Will swallows, "that there is power in a name. What does _your_ name mean?"

Hannibal smiles, chews, and tells him. "The grace of Ba'al."

Will almost laughs. "The grace of the _Devil._ Child of the Beast."

"In ancient times, they did not regard him as such," Hannibal muses, more to himself than to Will. It is as if he is enjoying the opportunity to talk with someone instead of being alone. "The people of the East called upon him for rain and wind, for fertility, for their livelihood. It was the Christians and the Jews who decried him, first as an idol, then as a demon, and finally as a permutation of the Devil himself."

"Is that meant to excuse you?" Will snorts, consuming another slice of potato.

"It was also the Christians who decried your sister."

Will freezes in silence.

"They singled her out, tried her and executed her while you were gone," Hannibal continues, still eating as if their conversation did not involve the murder of the only family he had left. "You cannot think that this was a coincidence. They knew they would not be able to do as they wanted were you present to defend her innocence."

"But she wasn't _innocent_ , was she," Will grinds out, painful as it is to admit the truth. "She confessed to killing that boy."

"Was it the truth?" 

Will gapes at Hannibal in shock. "Are you saying that she _lied in confession?_ Why would she do that? She is not stupid, Hannibal, she would have known confessing meant death!"

"I meant, were they telling you the truth when they said that she confessed," Hannibal clarifies. The wind is knocked out of Will's lungs. "You were not there, Will. You do not know the truth of the proceedings. It is exactly as you say; she would have known that confessing means death. Then why confess? It makes little sense, unless something happened other than what they have told you."

Too much. This is all too much. Will wants it all to stop. Will wants to wake up from this nightmare. "What are you saying, Hannibal? I do not understand."

"Open your eyes, Will. You must have seen it. You must have seen what they were trying to hide."

Will looks up and Hannibal holds his gaze, amber eyes flecked with dark brown and maroon under the candlelight, deep and mesmerizing like pools of rich golden nectar. Inhaling, Will closes his eyes and sinks.

  


* * *

  


_"We did not at first," Jack Crawford had said. "We all wondered."_

_It is the truth. Will reads it in the cant of his eyebrows, the furrow on his forehead. The lines of his mouth._

_At the edge of his vision, a flash of red. A pale, freckled face. Fredricka, that little rat. Will sees her, sees the flash in her eyes, victory and lurid satisfaction laced only with the tiniest dash of guilt. She had tattled on Abigail, that much is true, but she had done something else, something more --_

_Of course. Why should she come to Isabella Crawford first? She's a girl Abigail's age, an adolescent naturally avoidant of adults. No, she would have gone to someone her age first, a confidante, a trusted ally --_

_Cassandra Boyle. Once she gained knowledge of Nicholas Boyle's body found murdered, Fredricka would have gone to Cassandra Boyle. And Cassandra, knowing what lust Nicholas held for Abigail, would have drawn conclusions._

_"We found her at the edge of the woods by your house, collecting herbs and berries," Jack Crawford had said. But neither herbs nor berries grew at the edge of the woods near the house. The sheep eat them, the horse treads on them, stunting their growth. Will and Abigail forage deeper in the woods, where the undergrowth is undisturbed and fresh._

_So Abigail must have been tending the sheep or playing with the dogs when Fredricka and Cassandra came. Perhaps they came with Mrs. Boyle, who has not been herself since Nicholas disappeared. That grief must have exploded in anger once the news of his dead body came about. They took to Abigail and attacked her._

_Abigail's body hung limp from the gallows, long dark hair blowing in the breeze. She was wearing a black dress that is not one of her own. Will has never seen it before. There were scratches and gouges on her arms. There was blood crusted underneath her fingernails. Her pale lips were split as if she took a blow to the face. Her hair in tangles -- her hair was never in tangles. It was always braided._

_It was quick and merciful, they said. She did not suffer, they said._

_It was just, they said._

Will opens his eyes and stumbles out of the kitchen, down into the dark cellar, where Hannibal follows with an oil lamp. In its dim glow, with trembling hands, he unbinds the lump of wool and sheepskin and fleece, revealing Abigail's pale and lifeless body. He gently unclasps the bodice of the black dress, fingers catching at the strings, until finally he exposes her flesh to air and sees the large knife wound slashing across her gut.

For the second time, Will collapses in grief.

  


* * *

  


> _September 15, 1691_
> 
> _Today marks a month since Nicholas' disappearance. Cassandra is distraught, of course, but I worry more for Mrs. Boyle. She has not been herself since Nicholas disappeared. Fredricka and I took Cassandra to the grove where the creek splits into seven streams. I thought about it for a while and finally decided to do it. I made Fredricka and Cassandra an amulet each, from some twine and a few twigs and some of the fresh long grass we found at the edge of the water. For their luck and protection, I told them. We ate berries and fresh bread from Fredricka's mother and butter and I brought a little of the confit I made from our harvest of wild strawberries. I hope brother will not mind overmuch. It is the least I can do for my friend._

  


* * *

  


Surfacing from the hazy dreams is much like breaking the surface of a vast, still lake. Will floats underneath full awareness for a little while until the urge to breathe becomes too much to bear. He gasps awake.

"Be still," a voice murmurs from somewhere beside him. "You are safe."

He opens his mouth and croaks, unable to even form a single syllable. He coughs, clears his throat, and tries again, painful as it is. "Where...? What...?"

"You collapsed after seeing your sister's body. Exhaustion, coupled with an intense grief and lack of proper sustenance. I have been watching over you since."

Oh. Hannibal Lecter. Will is in his house in Boston, that house on top of the hill.

"Thank -- " he erupts into a volley of coughs, each one more violent than the next. Hannibal shushes him and gives him some water. He gulps it down greedily and then reaches up to rub at his eyes, which ache and are caked shut with dried tears.

"No gratitude is necessary. I share your grief. I understand."

Perhaps he is more attuned now that he has acknowledged the existence of his speciality. Will hears the undertone of an old heartache in the physician's voice, a loss like his own -- mayhap a sister all the same.

After a little while, Will levers himself up from the bed, feeling the weakness in his arms, the feeble strength of his muscles. He has truly neglected himself in his grief. Hannibal disappears from the room but shortly returns with something steaming in a bowl. Will accepts it and drinks the chicken broth gratefully.

He is not in the first room downstairs with the patient bed; he is upstairs, from the view through the window. It is late at night, the trees outside as shadows swaying in a strong wind. At the end of the bed, he hears a snuffle -- Winston, he notes with delight, offering his hand for his dog to sniff.

"He refused to leave your side," Hannibal tells him. "The other one is downstairs. Your horse is in my stable, safe. Your belongings are in this drawer."

The room he is in is best described as an apothecary masquerading as a library. There are countless shelves with books and glass jars, tins overflowing with herbs, small pots with leafy plants, a table neatly laid out with strange-looking tools and all sizes of knives. His cot is in a warm corner beside the door that leads down into the staircase, perhaps a makeshift just for him. Hannibal does not strike him as the type to bring company home, and besides which, Boston is just as Puritanical as Salem.

Not that a sorcerer would care.

"How long was I asleep?" Will asks, voice still raspy but much less painful than before the soup.

"Three days now," Hannibal tells him. Will jolts in surprise. Hannibal soothes him with a hand on his arm. "It is only to be expected. You have exhausted yourself to the bone. It is not an easy journey from Salem on foot. It must not have been easy to remove Abigail from the gallows by yourself either. You have been through an ordeal. Your body needed time to recuperate."

Will sags back against the pillows and stares blankly at the burning lamp. "Three days," he echoes. He should be more worried, but Hannibal's voice has calmed him so. He should think of his flock, of the house he has left behind, of the townsfolk who would look for him and wonder and suspect the worst.

Perhaps fortune will smile upon him and they will simply think he has taken his own life. Perhaps they will forget about him.

"I know you must have matters to attend, but truly, it can wait," Hannibal tells him. Will turns to watch the man, seated at the table and grinding some strange-looking leaves into a thick paste. Hannibal's arms are strong and riddled with veins, tan skin weathered from work in the garden. Long fingers handle the tools expertly, a lifetime with them making each movement as familiar as breathing. "Rest now. You may stay here for as long as you need. When you are strong once more, we will do what must be done. For now, think of what it is you wish for your sister."

  


* * *

  


In two days' time, Will is able to walk safely once again. He descends the stairs and observes the quiet house without Hannibal in it. The physician was called to business in town last night, someone with enough money to demand a visit in their own house.

He finds bread in the kitchen and lathers it with butter, before stepping outside to eat it under the sun. It feels good to sit in the grass among the herbs and vegetables, his dogs on either side of him, the silence on the hilltop replete. Will feels renewed with strength and prepared to face what lay ahead.

There is a well in the back garden with a narrow cobblestone path leading from the back porch towards it. Hannibal must have cobbled it himself. Will draws a pail of cool, clean water and sheds his clothes, washing his body clean of refuse and filth. Even more he feels energized afterwards. He borrows a sharp little razor from Hannibal's tools and shaves his beard, for it has grown overlong. Being clean-shaven makes him look ten years younger, but the transformation suits him. It fits with the expanding, yet unnamed yearning within his chest.

He takes the dogs for an easy walk through the woods behind the house, trapping two hares in the process which will make for dinner. A stew, just like the last meal Abigail made for him, to signify his decision.

When Hannibal returns, Will is in the kitchen laying out the food. 

He has had time to think. Now it is time to act.

  


* * *

  


"I will need your help once more," Will tells him after they have had dinner. "There is nothing in the means of wealth or property with which I can repay you for this; you must name me your price and I will try my best to meet it."

Hannibal steeples his fingers on his crossed knee. "Tell me first of this deed which you will need my help with, and I will tell you what I desire in return."

Will leans forward, elbows on knees, and stares Hannibal straight in the eyes. If he looks closer, he can read the approval, the anticipation burgeoning behind Hannibal's formidable mask. 

"I want retribution. My sister's death will be avenged."

Hannibal only blinks. "And how do you wish to deliver this retribution?"

"When I went to see Bedelia, she said something of interest to me that you may know about," Will explains. "She said -- she said that Abigail had the talent, perhaps unconsciously, to channel her power through her speech. To make people obey, to make them favor her. To make them listen. If she pushes strongly enough, Bedelia says Abigail had the power to drive them to lunacy."

Interest sparking like fire in Hannibal's eyes, he nods slowly and considers. "Is this what you want, Will? To drive your sister's killers to lunacy?"

Something snaps in Will's chest. He snarls, "I want to drive them _all_ to lunacy. I want hysteria to grip them, paranoia to rape their daily thoughts, fear to sink its fangs into their dreams every night such that they are unable to look at each other without suspicion, without doubt, without uncertainty. I want it to be slow, I want it to linger, I want it to take its time before they all end up killing each other. Let their own hypocrisy consume them. Let their precious community, their _city upon a hill_ , crumble into chaos as they accuse each other of the same heresy they accused my sister. Witchcraft? I will give them witchcraft. This will be my reckoning."

Silence spreads between them like darkness falling at sunset. In the midst of it, Hannibal's answering smile reflects something powerful and unholy.

"Can you help me?" Will asks again, dark and desperate. "I know what I want, but not how to achieve it."

"Remarkable Will," Hannibal sighs, smile widening even further, "I believe I can."

  


* * *

  


It takes them weeks to prepare. The process is slow and laborious. Hannibal has to maintain pretenses with the townsfolk to deflect suspicion, to avoid any dark rumors. They do the work in the cellar, where there is no risk that a visiting patient may see.

"My craft," Hannibal tells him, "is of flesh and blood and bone. I do not prefer to use words or incantations, though I have the capacity. I find its grip weak at best, though it is sometimes useful. No; I prefer shaping bone into weapons, flesh into curses, blood into power -- _that_ is the true art. Few are left who know it. Many of us, the most powerful of us, were hunted down and killed."

"In the continent," Will supplies, remembering Bedelia. "Did you know Bedelia from the continent too?"

"I did. We came on the same ship, I and her family. They are all practitioners of the craft, her family a long and pedigreed bloodline."

"What about you?" Will asks. "Where is your family?"

"Dead," Hannibal says, tone flat. "My mother burned. My father was hanged. My sister was stoned for the unnatural color of her eyes -- more red than amber -- they thought she was a child of the devil. I, too, took her body away like you have for your sister."

Will swallows, watching Hannibal's broad back from where he sits at the dinner table. "Were you able to bury her?"

Hannibal turns and sets down the food, face a careful construct of placid resignation. He sits and answers, "No. I did not dare. They would find her and exhume her and defile her body. I did the only thing I could that would ensure she did not get violated in death."

"You burned her?" Will says, surprised.

Hannibal looks up at him then, eyes limpid and communicating the deepest, darkest form of grief. "No, Will. I consumed her. I ate her flesh."

  


* * *

  


After coming to know this truth about his erstwhile companion, Will is not surprised when Hannibal explains the ritual. He is no longer under any illusion. His hands are performing the craft of the Beast.

"After this," Hannibal tells him, at dusk shortly before they are to begin, "the price I ask is for you to stay here as the first of my coven to learn the craft. What you do with it once you are finished learning is your decision. Before we begin, I must know if these terms are agreeable."

Will nods. "I knew you would ask something of the like. Why else would you show me so much, if you did not mean to keep me, or kill me?"

Hannibal only smiles at him then, a softening of his features, a wrinkling at the corners of his warm amber eyes. He draws a knife and nicks his thumb with the tip, then takes Will's hand and does the same. He puts his bleeding thumb to Will's mouth; Will's lips open in reflex, eyes holding Hannibal's gaze, tongue touching the wound to taste. The bond is wrought between them: it tastes of metal and fire, a forging, a promise. He feels the wound heal underneath his tongue. 

Hannibal takes Will's bleeding thumb and puts it in his mouth, sucking, licking, until that too heals and the other end is tied. They are bound in spirit now. Will cannot turn back.

Will's eyes flutter as Hannibal puts a hand on his cheek. The same thumb he had put in his mouth brushes his cheekbone, just underneath his eye. He almost breaks at the reverence in Hannibal's voice. "You will be magnificent, one day, and I will have the pleasure of witnessing your becoming. You will be my greatest creation. You do not yet know the power you hold, but you will see. I will show you."

Will nods, mesmerized still by Hannibal's eyes. When Hannibal takes his hand away, Will almost keens for the loss. Something has changed within him, though he cannot yet name it. Something in him now yearns for Hannibal's presence.

"Come along," Hannibal says, taking his hand and leading him to the cellar. "Our work begins tonight."

  


* * *

  


The moon is full that night when they begin the ritual. All of Will's feelings about Abigail are put away; it is more important to perform the job as Hannibal directs him. This is honoring her, he reminds himself, before he clears his mind the way Hannibal has taught him each night.

They stand before Abigail's body and divide her limb from limb, organ from organ. They strip her flesh into parts, down to her bone. The entire cellar is covered in blood now, yet no insect dares trespass into this space, no fly to feast upon her body, no ant to forage her bones for the marrow. All the animals and insects know that this flesh is marked for the Beast.

Will helps Hannibal shave long, flat strips from the yellow-white bones of her slender legs. Plaiting sinew and tendon, they stretch muscle into interwoven pages, binding them with twine and flax. They make the bow of these, setting the fibers and grains of her tissue in regular opposition, the arc at first haphazard but congealing, twisting, and shrinking into graceful proportion under Hannibal's skilled, careful hands.

They work without speaking, for words unnecessary in this space, where their hands channel their power, their intention creating purpose. Will removes her virgin womb and places her dismembered head inside, eyes removed from the sockets, tongue cut away and hair shaved off. The eyes and tongue he folds within her still heart. Once done, he places the her womb and her heart on the wooden board in a corner of the cellar, where they sit in mute splendor, glowing with the power she once held. They will be buried in the garden and will feed life into the herbs, something she would have wanted for herself.

At dawn, Will almost always collapses with exhaustion, during which Hannibal half-carries him outside. They wash themselves clean of the grit of their work and retreat into Hannibal's bedroom, where they lay together in slumber, cocooned by their new bond.

The bow quickens, warping into shape, its fibers darkening with each dusk that passes over them. Hannibal works tirelessly to hone it. Will does what he can to help.

Her long dark hair is straightened and pulled, twined together, braided in tiny sections the way she could never do by herself. Will works until his shoulders ache, his back screaming in pain, his hands cramping and eyes blurring at the detail required. Each knot is burdened with a memory of her. Each strand of hair strengthened with the hot rage welling from within his gut.

Once Hannibal has finished the arc of the bow, they use her hair to become the bowstring. It takes the two of them to pull the arc hard enough to give it tension, all of their physical strength straining to bend it into shape. Hair strung, the bow is a beautiful black arc, meant to deliver the retribution it has been made for.

From the bones of her ribcage they make the body of the arrows. They make twenty-five arrows, one from each rib and the twenty-fifth from the sternum, polished to gleaming whiteness until it hurt Will's eyes to look upon them. Each arrow is meant for a house, twenty-five houses and farmsteads in Salem upon which they will bring the curse. The arrow, Hannibal tells him, marks the household for the Beast, so that It may work upon all those who dwell within, wreaking doubt and fear and madness in Its wake.

On the thirteenth night, they shave the last of the smallest bones of her spine into the sharpest, deadliest arrow tips, fitted atop the body of the arrows made from her ribcage, and they are done.

Will collapses into Hannibal's bed one last time and curls into the welcome warmth, falling asleep under the window where he bathes in a puddle of sunlight.

  


* * *

  


The ritual takes the wind out of Will. Once again, he wavers from wakefulness to a disturbed slumber, the susurrus of many hushed voices tiding and ebbing against him like the sea. Throughout his convalescence, the only constant is Hannibal, who tends to him and talks to him and tells him that he is remarkable, that he is cared for, that he is safe. Within those strong, capable hands, Will surrenders himself, uncaring now should his soul burn in hell for it. He would have burned without Hannibal anyway, in hellfire of his own making.

When he finally wakes, surely several days later, he is held against a broad chest, Hannibal's nose to the back of his neck, even breathing suggesting that the man is fast asleep.

Will closes his eyes and stays there for a while. Here, the world does not seem so bleak after all.

  


* * *

  


They leave Boston on horseback shortly after midday, ensuring that they are seen and making excuses for Hannibal's absence. Will's sister, they tell the townsfolk, is in dire need of a skilled physician. They had been preparing all they needed to tend to her, they say, and now they are ready.

They ride with haste, kicking dirt and dust behind them, the bow and arrows bundled in a roll behind Will. It takes several hours still, and the journey is harder with frost limning the dirt paths. They take care where the horses step, wary of injuring them, for otherwise they would have no other recourse but to return on foot.

As planned, they arrive in the dead of the night. Not a single soul in the streets, houses dark and lamps doused. The harvest is done, the modest feasting concluded; they are fortunate that no one decided to stay up later than they ought. Will had not wanted to do this tonight for fear of being seen, but Hannibal tells him that tonight is best for what they intend. Samhain, they used to call it, a time when the veil between this world and others are thinner and more porous, such that their ritual may have a stronger pull.

They debark their horses and lead on foot. Quietly, Hannibal takes the reins from Will's hands. Will meets his gaze and nods. He unpacks the bow and the arrows, hefts it in his arms as they approach the first house.

His hands tremble at first, holding her sinew and bone, one arrow notched with another bit between his teeth. This is the moment. This is the retribution he will bring them.

With one breath, he hesitates. Hannibal's hand lands softly on his shoulder, warm breath on his ear. "Think of her smile when you pull at the bow. And then think of her dead body when you loose the arrow."

His words coil deep in Will's belly, filling him with a hot, insensate rage. Will draws the bow back with all his strength and feels that one single motion brace every muscle of his body down to the tiniest toe of his foot. He lets those toes grip the earth, feels the tension lock in his shoulder as the grace of the string touches his lips. _Abigail's hair_. He can smell it, a clean and warm scent, a precious memory.

When he opens his eyes, Fredricka's house is in front of him. Will holds his breath, raises the bow skyward, and lets go.

The arrow streaks forth and rips the darkness in half with a sound that sensually pulses through every fiber of Will's being. Hannibal feels it too; Will can feel him tremble right behind him. The arrow spirals through the air, sensing its target, lusting for a sacrifice of blood on its fine-bone tip. For a moment, Will sails through the air with it, high above these porous lands, in the farthest edge of his vision seeing the sea, singing towards its intended.

It lands, finally, with a thud on the roof that only they can hear. They are the only ones awake, after all.

The pain calls Will back. The inside of his arm is raw from where the bowstring had lashed it, reddening the top layer of skin with the ease of a whip, intentional and severe. Stepping forward, he removes the next arrow from between his teeth, notches it, and holds his breath. 

Skyward.

  


* * *

  


The town of Salem wakes to a strange sight. William Graham, that odd shepherd who lives in a saltbox farmhouse on the edge of civilization, is herding his many heads of sheep towards their market with a tall man accompanying him, a stranger whose name and face they do not know.

Jack Crawford meets them at the square and asks after their intent. Will Graham, as usual, refuses to meet anyone's eyes when he speaks. But at least he speaks quickly and plainly. "I wish to sell my flock to whomever would like to buy them. I wish to also sell my property and all within it, save a few personal belongings."

"Are you leaving town, Will?" Jack asks. They had expected this, of course, after he had vanished with the girl witch's body in the deep of the night a whole moon ago. The townsfolk will be relieved to be rid of such scandal.

"I'm leaving to stay with my friend," Will explains. The townsfolk look upon the tall man beside him. "I have no need of the sheep or the farmhouse."

After some initial reluctance, the townsfolk quickly begin bargaining for the sheep. Some start murmuring about the farm. Will Graham's sheep are known for quality fleece, and his farmhouse has a well-tended garden with plenty of land about. It takes hardly half the day to conclude their business. Will walks away with plenty of coin in his pocket, some cloth, bags of grain, and a few pieces of precious jewellery for the farm and the land. He bids goodbye to them without further ado, swinging up to saddle his horse and riding away to disappear with his nameless friend.

The townsfolk of Salem return to the chores of their day, more at rest now that the stain upon their community is gone. If a few folk notice the pieces of dark twig and white stone fallen on their doorsteps or on a windowsill, they merely shrug and brush it away or bring it into the house to reuse. There must have been a strong wind last night.

  


* * *

  


_The Year of Our Lord, 1692_

 

Boston heard of the first incidents in early February, some weeks after the terrifying events truly occurred. Two girl children, according to the news bearers, began behaving oddly, screaming and throwing things about the room and uttering strange guttural sounds, crawling under furniture, contorting themselves into inhuman shapes, speaking in tongues. Ministers and reverends were called from nearby towns to no avail. The girl children were incurable of their strange disease, and people began to whisper dark things. _Demons_ , they said. _Possession. Witches. Curses. Evil._

If such things were heard as whispers in Boston, they were as loud as bellows in Salem Town, where accusations began flying left and right, sister accusing sister, daughter accusing mother, husband accusing wife. _Witches, all witches, servants of the Devil, bringers of the Beast!_

A young lady called Fredricka Lounds was the first witch to die that year on Gallows Hill. The news stunned all of the Bay Colonies once again into a horrified, stony silence. Throughout the summer, more women were found guilty and sentenced to death, one pale body after the other, strung up to sway, pale and lifeless, in the breeze.

The days grew longer, the nights grew darker. More deaths, they heard. More trials.

Salem continued to try and sentence more women until the next summer, executing with complete conviction twenty-five women who were witches.

The townsfolk of Boston grew ill at ease with such unrest so close to their community. Many fell sick, and whispers grew among the more feeble-minded, but they all agreed that they were fortunate to have a trustworthy physician to help them in their time of illness, a kind man and devout to the church besides. That was the only way to know if one was to trust a person these days, for a servant of the Devil should not be able to step into a sanctified place of worship and utter the verses of the Holy Bible.

Mr. Lecter came every Sunday to worship and even brought along his shy but handsome friend, Mr. Graham, whose sister sadly passed away of fever and ague. Mr. Lecter took his failure to help her deeply, such that he persuaded Mr. Graham to come to Boston with him and leave behind the bitter memories of their childhood home where his sister had died. He was a very kind man, Mr. Lecter. They were very fortunate indeed.

These days, if one were to climb to the hilltop where Misters Lecter and Graham lived, one would find well-tended flowerbeds and lush gardens and two dozing dogs on the porch. Mr. Lecter would usher any person into his sitting room and listen to their complaints, while Mr. Graham quietly cooked in the kitchen or tended the plants outside. Once in a while, the townsfolk saw Mr. Graham walking the beach to trap crabs, or setting out on a boat to fish on the bay. They lived a quiet, peaceable life, the kind of life the founders of these colonies aspired to when they dreamt of a city upon a hill.

The witch-hangings never came to Boston, though news of it constantly did. Had the words not filtered through a hundred lips before coming to them, however, they would have noticed an odd similarity with each accused woman's testimony, whether or not they confessed to their sins of devil-worship and heresy. 

"You d-don't understand," Cassandra Boyle had hysterically sobbed to her fellow villagers. "You d-don't understand, it's like an a-arrow, a c-cold arrow piercing you in the chest -- it hurts and it's absolute -- it's a mark. It's a c-curse."

Every accused woman spoke of an arrow piercing through their chest, one way or another, as a dream or as a vision, their words melding together until they were all saying the same thing.

_We were marked by the Beast._

  


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**NOTES & AFTERTHOUGHTS**

✪ Inspired in part by _The Witches: Suspicion, Betrayal, and Hysteria_ , a book by Stacy Schiff. Also, _The Vorrh_ by B. Catling.

✪ In Wicca, a **_pentacle_** is a _pentagram_ circumscribed in a circle. In Middle French, the word _pentacle_ was used to refer to any talisman. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, a German polymath and occult writer in the 1500s, summarises that their use was “to fore-know all future things and command whole nature, have power over devils, and Angels, and do miracles.” Agrippa attributes Moses’ feats of magic in part to his knowledge of various pentacles.

✪ The **Massachusetts Bay Colony** was a settlement of English expatriates in the 1600s around the broad opening of the Massachusetts Bay, consisting of the territories around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The Colony began in 1628 and was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the 1630s. The population was strongly Puritan, and its governance reflected Puritanical values of the sanctity of marriage, simplicity of livelihood, strict religious rituals observed in daily life, and strong intolerance to other religious views such as the Anglicans, Quakers, and Baptists.

✪ The **Salem witch trials happened between February 1692 to May 1693** , resulting in the execution of twenty people (fourteen women, all but one by hanging). These were not the first witch trials; twelve other women were previously executed in Massachusetts and Connecticut during the 1600s, three of them in Boston. The first of the events did happen in Salem Village in February 1692, involving a nine-year-old named Betty Parris and an eleven-year-old named Abigail Williams. They were thought to be possessed due to their erratic behavior.

✪ “ **The power of a name** ” is an old construct in many realms of lore across the world. Many tales and legends tell of beasts and dieties being summoned by their names. In particular, Christianity invokes power in the name of Jesus Christ and often uses the name as a weapon and a shield during true exorcisms. Catholicism uses the Rituale Romanum during exorcisms, but some believe that knowing the name of the demon entity possessing an individual gives one the power to control and banish the demon. – Additionally, in Asian lore, true names of gods are regarded as powerful, thus sometimes hidden from common knowledge, because it reflects a being’s soul.

✪ **The arrow on the roof** can be referenced to a _very_ old Japanese lore about human sacrifice from the prehistoric times of the Jomon period. Arrows have always been viewed with great spiritual power and significance. When one witnessed in the morning an arrow pierced upon his roof, it signified that the eldest unmarried daughter dwelling in the house must be sacrificed to the Diety of the Wild Beasts. She was buried alive so that her flesh might appease the Beast. However, as time passed, the negative connotation of the arrow was lost, eventually replaced by a more positive connotation of protection and good fortune. 

✪ **The Beast** is a thematic I chose to use because of the many layers it lends to this fic. Simultaneously, it refers to Hannibal, the bear that brutalized Will’s parents, the Devil, and the animal instinct within Will himself.


End file.
